IÃ­ve said it before, use upper and lower case, use number and letter combinations and when possible, if the website allows it, use special characters. It has been documented that ÄAdding just one capital letter and one asterisk would change the processing time for an 8 character password from 2.4 days to 2.1 centuries.Ä
It is great advice to strengthen your passwords. It is just as important is to make sure your PC is free of malicious programs such as spyware and key-loggers. Beware of RATS a.k.a ÄRemote Access Trojans.Ä RATÃ­s can capture every keystroke typed, take a snapshot of your screen and even take rolling video of your screen via a webcam. But whatÃ­s most damaging is RATs gaining full access to your files and if you use a password manager they have access to that as well.

RATÃ­s covertly monitor a PC generally without the userÃ­s knowledge. RATÃ­s are a criminal hackers dream and are the key ingredient in spyware. Common RATÃ­s are the LANRev Trojan and ÄBackdoor OrificeÄ.